¹⁶ And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the ^[a]pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.

¹⁷ “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

¹⁸ Then you shall say to the people, ^[a]‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wept ^(A)in the hearing of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt.” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat. ¹⁹ You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, ^20 (B)but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have ^(C)despised the Lord who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying, ^(D)“Why did we ever come up out of Egypt?” ’ ”

⁵ And the people ^(A)spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul ^[a]loathes this worthless bread.”

⁴ Now the ^(A)mixed multitude who were among them ^[a]yielded to ^(B)intense craving; so the children of Israel also wept again and said: ^(C)“Who will give us meat to eat? ^5 (D)We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; ⁶ but now ^(E)our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!”

⁷ Now ^(F)the manna was like coriander seed, and its color like the color of bdellium. ⁸ The people went about and gathered it, ground it on millstones or beat it in the mortar, cooked it in pans, and made cakes of it; and ^(G)its taste was like the taste of pastry prepared with oil. ⁹ And ^(H)when the dew fell on the camp in the night, the manna fell on it.

⁹ “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, ^(A)but what are they among so many?”